Perspective

When I was growing up I was always kind of a brat when it came to chores. Unlike my generally compliant older brother, I often only performed them with extreme reluctance and after repeated demands from my parents.

So it was quite the anomaly when one day, in the early autumn of 2000, I arrived home from middle school and went to rake the front lawn without hesitation at my parents' first asking. I do remember feeling an initial surge of resistance when the request was made of me, partially because that had sadly become my default reaction, and partially because I had just gotten home and I wanted to relax and eat a snack in front of the TV for a bit, as was my usual custom.

But I guess it was sort of the perfect storm of positive circumstances that made me bottle down that instinct and immediately obey. For one, it was a beautiful day. Probably right around sixty, sunny, and the leaves were in full color in that perfect crisp fall air. Additionally, raking leaves, particularly on the smaller more scenic front lawn, also happened to be the chore I disliked the least. In fact, under such conditions I almost actually enjoyed it. And finally, I wasn't being asked to do it alone. My whole family was doing it with me (though I was a little confused why my dad was home so early, I quickly shrugged it off). This meant it would not only go a lot faster, but it would be somewhat social as well.

Afterwards we all came inside and sat down for dinner. I can't remember exactly what it was anymore, but mom had prepared what at the time was one of my favorite regular meals. Possibly cube steak and mashed potatoes. Either way, this put me in an even better mood.

The table conversation was more stilted and restrained than usual, but I didn't really think anything of it. Then, around the middle of the meal, my dad began talking not exactly solemnly, but softer than usual. I can't remember quite how he broached the subject, but he was impressively composed and didn't beat around the bush for long. It was something like this, "So, your mom went to the doctor today and they ran some tests. The tests said that she has breast cancer."

It was like being hit by a wave of cold air, and everything else sort of came into focus now: the perfect dinner, my dad being home. The first thing I remember is just being so thankful I didn't complain about having to rake the leaves earlier. How petty, how horrible that would have been for my parents to have to quarrel with me about that on a day like this. How horrible I would have felt when I found out the truth.

As soon as my dad had ripped off the band-aid he and my mom almost seemed like two political consultants going into damage control mode, presenting me and my brother with a flurry of optimistic spin.

They had caught it very early.

They didn't think my mom would need chemo.

The doctor was a friend of mine's mom.

Even though they were clearly just trying to gloss up a very scary situation, I needed that, and it did help. We need to pretend sometimes to keep the calm. If my parents share one defining trait, it might be that: an ability to find even the tiniest positives inside the biggest negatives. I remember sitting there, timidly asking a question or two and trying to act normal, even though my entire frame of reference had just been blown up.

The first 24 hours was by far the worst. It felt so unfair. I remember watching TV that night and being jealous of literally every single person I saw. Every character, every actor, every news anchor. All I could think was, "look at these people going about their business. They can be concerned with all this inconsequential non-sense, their mom's don't have cancer."

Another weird strain of thought also briefly ran through my head. As I've made clear on here plenty of times before, our household was a rather repressed one, and for the most fleeting moment I remember thinking about how awkward it was that we all had to acknowledge that my mom had breasts. Maybe it was actually a good icebreaker in that respect, for up to that point my plan was to basically pretend everyone on the planet was asexual for the rest of my days when in the presence of my parents.

But fear, fear was overwhelmingly the predominant sensation. That night I prayed harder than I ever have in my life. I just said, "please please please please please please please let my mom's cancer treatments go well. And please please please please please let her live through this and for a long long long long long time after that." For there it was, for really the first time I had to stare my mom's mortality in the face.  

The next day at school it was nearly impossible to concentrate. I felt like I was walking in a haze. It was one of those rare things that truly dominates every waking moment. And yet, I felt like I couldn't talk about it with anyone, in that way that the most important things in our lives are conversely often those we feel least able to discuss. I can't remember if my parents actually told me to keep it quiet or if that was a decision I made on my own, I think the latter, but either way it just felt so strange, to be making small talk with my friends when something so big was on my mind. It was difficult to act amused and engaged. I remember I didn't know what else to talk about at lunch the next day so I just described to Owen and Kevin the tasty dinner I'd had last night, knowing full well how weird and random I must have sounded gushing about mashed potatoes. 

I guess there were a bunch of different reasons I didn't talk about it. I think I felt like as long as I didn't tell anyone, maybe that meant it wasn't super serious yet. Then there was the fact that health is often a very private matter so it wasn't my secret to share. (I'm still struggling with this point. I've sat on this post for months trying to decide whether or not this is my story to tell; I'm still not sure). And the fact that I thought people would likely treat me differently, and maybe be afraid to talk about normal stuff. And the fact that it felt almost powerful in a way to have such a tremendous secret. As if, perhaps, I could pull it out and guilt trip the heck out of someone if they were mean to me (though I never did, I can't deny it was tempting a few times to pull that pity card, and alternatively, not pulling it made me feel strong).

Things were also a little weird at home. When I got home that next day it seemed like every conversation was spent walking on eggshells. We were all being super polite and conspicuously talking about the most boring simple unsubstantial things, but we could all feel the elephant in the room just behind every word.

And then, I'm not sure. Somehow it got better. Maybe my mind was just exhausted of thinking about it, but, while still present, it didn't dominate every waking moment after that first day. I just felt like it was all going to work out, like it had to, and things moved so quickly. It was only about a month later that my mom had her surgery to remove the tumor, which went well. Then she just had a series of half a dozen or so radiation treatments afterwards and that was that. She was always worn out after radiation, but it was not chemo, she never lost her hair or got really ill, and since they were while I was at school I barely even knew they were happening.

Things were still palpably different around home for that first month leading up to the surgery though. We truly were all being really nice and helpful and trying to get along better than we ever had. And at least on my end, I know I was appreciating my mom a lot more.

But like most everything, it wears off. My grandma came up for the long weekend that immediately followed the surgery, and I remember just a day or two afterward my brother and I started yelling at each other over some card game. She immediately scolded us for for putting my mom in a stressful situation when we should have just been doing everything we could to make her happy. And of course I felt bad, but slowly, imperceptibly, the awareness fades.

Soon I was complaining about dinner foods and whining and fighting with my parents about chores all over again.

I dunno, I dunno how to do it, how do you keep it all in perspective? How do you prevent yourself from taking your mom for granted? I guess you have to shift your whole paradigm, and that's not something pre-teen me was conscious enough to do, even though I truly did want to. 

So, I tried (and largely failed) to hold onto it in other ways. I felt like I should take offense whenever people made jokes about cancer, even though I had little problem laughing at any other kind of tasteless jest. Part of me was actually a touch offended by such jokes, but mostly I just felt like if I did laugh, and then people later found out about my mom's cancer, they would think I was a horrible person.

Once years later, one of my friends did make such a joke, and even though I knew he meant absolutely nothing by it, I chided him for it. His response was that it was okay for him to make that joke because his grandma had had cancer. I told him I thought that made it even worse, though I don't really know, in retrospect I guess each person should be able to cope however they need to. I just think people need to be more aware of what they're saying when making light of situations like that.

There was also one additional way my mom's illness may have influenced me: right at the start of high school I was convinced I had testicular cancer. (Although I never watched the show, I heard Tom Green's story and that combined with my family history briefly turned me into an acute hypochondriac). Eventually I realized I was just being paranoid, but for weeks, even months, I felt as if I was just putting off telling my mom about it because I was embarrassed, and it actually influenced my actions as I felt like I shouldn't be making any long term plans that might get hindered by treatment.

Though maybe the strangest thing is, now over a decade later, sometimes I actually almost forget about the whole ordeal my mom endured. She's never had another scare and it just barely ever comes up. And in the grand scheme of things, one day of omnipresent fear followed by one month of unease isn't all that lengthy. It feels like so many cancer survivors make survivorship a huge part of their identity, and maybe that's part of the reason I almost forget, because it slips my mind that not everyone embraces it to the same degree. Many march in parades and start Caring Bridge sites, while my mom, modest by nature, barely even told a soul.

Or perhaps an even scarier notion is that cancer just isn't as shocking as it used to be because it's so ubiquitous. When my mom was diagnosed, I didn't really know of anyone else who'd had a close friend or family member with the disease, at least not someone who was under the age of 65. But since then I'll bet practically everyone of my friends has had some relative go through it (not to mention one of my grandmas a few years later). Even worse, three good friends of mine have been diagnosed with cancer before the age of 27. All of them had chemo and lost their hair, and mercifully, all of them have survived.

All of this is to say that, speaking as someone who's never had cancer or any other life threatening ailment, hearing about other peoples' sicknesses has almost become so commonplace as to become white noise. But I got off easy, for all of those people suffering and their close family and friends, it can be a living hell, and we can't forget that.

That was reinforced to me in a somewhat startling way recently. Over the past year, I've been hanging out with one of my friends far more than I ever have before despite having known him for half a decade. We've gone camping together, gone on little road trips, to baseball games, to dinner countless times, and in general spent a very large amount of time together. And yet, as a random aside while we were eating lunch and watching football a couple weeks ago, he mentioned that his dad had cancer this year.

He just said that he was probably going to watch football the next week with his dad because he felt he should spend more time with him since, "He's had a rough year. He had cancer. (then to reassure me) - He's fine now and everything though."

I thought I could read exactly between the lines. Much like me, he had chosen not to talk about it probably because it's a bummer to talk about and because he didn't want to share anything unless it needed to be shared. And I assumed, that much like my experience with my mom, it had probably been a relatively quick fix. I was wrong.

I talked to his girlfriend the next weekend and found out the whole story. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say that this wasn't your garden variety one and done cancer, and while improving, it certainly wasn't finished.

I felt so bad. All I could think about was all the trivial B.S. he must have heard me complain about over the past nine months, while he must have had so much more pressing matters on his mind. I practically wanted to call him up and apologize on the spot.

I almost feel like there's no point to writing this whole post because I have little doubt this heightened sensitivity will pass like so many others before it, but, if only for a moment, my perspective had been restored.